INFORMATION, COMMUNICATON AND THE DIGITAL CITY

INFORMATION, COMMUNICATON AND THE DIGITAL CITY1

Cláudia Sofia Gonçalves Ferreira LimaFaculty of Architecture and Arts, University Lusíada of Porto (FAAULP)

INTRODUCTIONCities are places of contrasts at all levels, mixing and divergent, they bear opportunities but also

failures; comprising different inner worlds. Understanding the city is to understand the visible and

invisible layers that compose and represent its environment. The city can be analysed as a form

of communication produced to represent and inform the city agent’s visions and beliefs. Even

before the written word, distant messages were conveyed by fire and smoke at the speed of light2.

Communicating has evolved from spoken and written words to contemporary means of

communication through visual and performative narratives and the Internet, now a dominant

source of information, changing the way people understand the city.

This essay looks particularly at the ways of communicating and informing the city; by the creation

of symbols and conveyance of messages, and in the consequences for city life. It introduces the

debate about the era of information and communication technology (ICT) and its most prominent

impacts on the city and urban society. Being that information is critical for everyday life, this essay

offers an investigation of ICT in the context of the city, positioning the reader in the realms of

media, from an architectural view point, as an important information and communication form:

virtual spaces and alternative realities to the city, which provide mediated experiences of the city.

Over the last two decades, along with the process of globalisation, technology, information and

networked societies have defused and invaded people’s lives. The city has become a flow of

networks with many meanings; conveying countless messages through different mediums such

as: newspapers, billboards and graffiti3. City spaces provide the bandwidth for the flow of

information between people, spaces of exchange, competition, learning and communication. As

digitised and informational commodities increasingly invade the city, people’s experience of the

city becomes mediated by the visual cues, increasingly populating the urban environment in the

form of light, colour and movement: advertising, street and traffic information, people’s

movements, and many other stimuli.

1 This essay was built upon my PhD thesis, entitled Imprint City: Representations and perceptions of Porto after 2001,presented to the University of Liverpool, 2011.2 John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid. The Social Life of Information (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard BusinessSchool Press, 2002).3 William J. Mitchell. Placing Words: Symbols, Space, and the City (London: MIT Press, 2005).

Information networks have a great impact on cities, and offer many possibilities for

interconnections between people. This essay ultimately tries to do a more general investigation

about the effects of information and communication technology on city life. For this, it reviews

some current work on cities’ mediated experiences through networks of electronic information,

with focus on the World Wide Web (WWW) as the most up-to-date medium of information widely

used to represent cities and their services virtually. Because the city’s institutions and leaders are

more aware of the importance of the internet as a means to represent and promote the city; this

essay looks at Porto’s , Portugal, digital networks in particular, and how these impact on people´s

response and perceptions of the city.

1 CITY MULTIFORM ‘PLEXUSES’ AND MESSAGESIn City Worlds (1999) Massey et al. have argued that a city has many realities that are fluid and

cross-cutting; imagining the city this way is to look at it as a range of superimpositions – both

visible and invisible – and when these superimpositions change; different groups of people and

worlds may come into proximity. The authors examine the ways in which the city is represented

through these superimposed worlds: the rhythms and patterns of the cities’ networks that divide

city life in an everyday-basis. They also explore the symbolism of the built environment:

contrasting juxtaposed aesthetics, in relation to issues of exclusion or inclusion4. Most of all,

Massey proposes that cities are the intersections of a series of narratives. Each city has distinct

stories to tell, with their own significance and co-existence, reducing a city to a point on a

historical time-line is to deny their very continuum of growth5. Furthermore, understanding the city

is about analysing the role of memory and the imaginary as interpretative schemas by which

different social groups experience and have knowledge of the city6. The experience of the city

allows for a comprehensive perceptual understanding of its particular settings, but other drivers

exist that communicate the city through invisible layers.

In Learning from Las Vegas (1977), Venturi et al. assert that the city is composed of artificially

created informational façades: it is a city of spectacle, witnessed in the billboards of the famous

“strip” and in the historicising fantasy architecture of Las Vegas motels and casinos. Here, the

primacy of symbols and signs is taken as a commercial strategy. In this book, the account of the

city is made through a deconstruction of its main symbolic elements – the city space becomes the

main character of the narrative. Thus perception, as symbolisation, becomes a dimension of the

4 Doreen Massey, John Allen and Steve Pile (eds.). Cities World (London, New York: Routledge, 1999), 55.5 Massey et al. Cities World (London, New York: Routledge, 1999), 171.6John Eade and Christopher Mele (eds.). Understanding the City: Contemporary and Future Perspectives. Studies inUrban and Social Change Series (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2002), 4.

narrative of the city. Architecture is, here, examined as a form of communication, where methods

of “commercial persuasion and the skyline of signs”7 should also serve the purposes of

enhancing the civic and cultural orders of the city.

The city is thus understood as a place with a wide range of meanings – with objects that convey

given messages. This is an age of digitalised realities with sub-worlds, which we can all create,

and experience individually or as a collective. The city is therefore a complex information network

of TV-screens, cinematic billboards, music, mobile phones and other miniaturised commodities.

Evocation of cities often provide stereotype images about places people have never visited based

on what they have heard and seen from various media forms. Stereotypical images of places are

developments of images that come through secondary sources of information8. Television, film

and software are all media forms that depict the city and are able to build images and perceptions

of the city9. Sandy Isenstadt10 furthers adds that visual representations are vital for

communicating architecture, using the examples of Rem Koolhaas and Léon Krier; where

drawings and computer aided design is crucial for their theoretical position. The images conveyed

by their urban visions swiftly get fixed in people´s minds. For example, Koolhaas’ work has a

highly visual logic in his work: textual signs are added to a vast landscape of illustrations and

manuscripts; his buildings are complex and expressive, highly formalist and functional, thus

easier to recall for their “unusual” form – scale, urban insertion, colour and expressive envelope.

This could be only achieved through technological advances in visual representation; such as

virtual three-dimensional modelling and animation, which has assisted the conception of highly

complex spaces as exemplified in Koolhaas’ Casa da Música.

7 Robert Venturi, Steven Izenour, Denise Scott Brown. Learning From Las Vegas: the forgotten symbolismof architectural form (Massachusetts: MIT Press,1977 [1972]), 6.8 Jacqueline Burgess. “The production and consumption of environmental meanings in the mass media: a researchagenda for the 1990s” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers New Series, Vol. 15, No. 2 (1990), 143.http://www.jstor.org/stable/622861.9 Lawrence J. Vale and Sam Bass Warner Jr. (eds) Imaging the City: Continuing Struggles and NewDirections (New Jersey: The Centre for Urban Policy Research, 2001).10 Isenstadt, Sandy. “Recurring surfaces: architecture in the experience economy” Perspecta, Vol. 32, (2001), 108-119.http://www.jstor.org/pss/1567288.

Figure 1. Casa da Música (1999 - 2005). Porto, 2010.Figure 2. Casa da Música, planification of the envelope.

2 THE AGE OF THE INVISIBLE CITYThe city is greatly dependent on infrastructures such as water, electricity, gas, and transport

systems. City life has been over-immersed with applications of this particular trope: 'on-ramps' to

the information highway, 'speed-bumps,' 'construction,' 'toll booths,' 'highwaymen,' 'hotels‟. The

metaphor seems to make immediate sense and it has quickly become taken for granted as an

image of this new network'11.

However, along with transport, communication technologies have allowed for a deeper

transformation in the growth of cities and the globalisation of their economies. The existence of

the informational society is important for understanding the ways through which technologies are

socially constructed; the ways they are put into use; the effects and impacts of the power

relations within their development12. The greater the “bandwidth” (as the channel through which

information passes), the more impact ICT has in people’s relationship with jobs and other

everyday activities that can have an electronic congener. ICT has significantly impacted city

dwellers: urban networks, economy, urban life and other various dimensions. “Porto Digital” is an

example of the bandwidth infrastructure of the city of Porto, which aims to bring people together

and closer to information in their cities. It is a network that unifies several existing networks in the

city of Porto; covering a great area, which includes optical fibre and wireless communication

spots.

Telecommunications have been considered to demonstrate the plasticity of space; able to stretch,

11 Zoe Druick, “The Information Superhighway, or The Politics of a Metaphor” eserver.org, 1995 (n.p.)http://bad.eserver.org/issues/1995/18/druck.html.12 Tim Dixon, Bob Thompson, Patrick McAllister, Andrew Marston, and Snow, Jon. Real Estate and the New Economy:The Impact of Information and Communications Technology (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2005).

deform and be compressed according to the city’s agents needs13 - space can be reconfigured

by telecommunications. Increasing reduction in the costs of transmitting and accessing

technology has changed the ways people relate with the built environment. For example, easy

access to communication, information and music via cell phones has provoked a more distant

relation between people and the city, especially in public spaces – people move faster, more

unaware of the surroundings. The city’s spatial structure, as well as its planning, thus becomes

more entwined with knowledge, information and technology14. City spaces provide the bandwidth

for: telephone and mobile phone networks; wireless and cable systems; Internet and video

networks; music and miniaturised commodities15. The cultural realm of the city also becomes

more flexible and fleeting, with the emergence of transient and symbolic communication mediums,

and is increasingly mediated by networks of electronic media16.

Is it pertinent to ask if physical spaces are being replaced by virtual public spaces? In essence,

public spaces gather a multitude of features that allow people to connect with other people – they

are a social production that facilitates the relationship with the built environment, though we also

increasingly have mediated experiences there through the city’s existing visible and invisible

networks. The virtual domain is not a replacement for the physical world. Yet it can add to the

city’s diverse representational forms; acting as another source of information; and augment its

experience, for example, by allowing the virtual recreation of places that have an actual physical

reference.

The city is increasingly a system of virtual spaces that are connected by the information

superhighway17. It is a place that provides the settings for communication and is itself a conductor

of flows of information18. The city becomes a commodity, where there is an increasing dominance

of software over materialised form. In City of Bits, Mitchell19 explores architecture and urbanism

in the context of the telecommunication revolution – he tries to say that we make technology and,

in turn, it makes us. Mitchell makes an interesting exploration of the “city of Infobahn” (CAD, GIS,

software development and e-commerce) and the miniaturisation of the “instruments of human

interaction”20.

The digital city is similar to an information ecosystem that keeps changing, eliminating those that

13 Saskia Sassen (ed.). Global networks, Linked cities (London, New York: Routledge, 2000).14 Manuel Castells. “An introduction to the information age”, City, 2 (7) (1997) pp. 6-16.15 Stephen Graham and Simon Marvin, “Urban planning and the technological future of cities” in Wheeler et al. (eds)Cities in the telecommunications age: the fracturing of geographies. London, New York: Routledge, 2000. 71-98.16 Castells. “An introduction to the information age” City, 2 (7) (1997) pp. 6-16.17 William J. Mitchell. City of Bits: Space, Place and the Infobahn (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1996).18 Mitchell. Placing Words: Symbols, Space, and the City (London: MIT Press, 2005).19 Mitchell. City of Bits: Space, Place and the Infobahn (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1996).20 Mitchell. City of Bits: Space, Place and the Infobahn (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1996), 4.

no longer can adapt. This is the invisible city of the twenty-first century – one of the electronic

information age. Mitchell argues that our task is now to imagine and create “digitally mediated

environments”21 for the type of life and communities we want. This becomes important for

understanding the possible impacts that informational commodities have in the experiences “that

give shape and texture to our daily routines”22: along with access to economic opportunities and

public services. Hence, the city is more than the physical achievements of our own desires and

actions and more than the physical order brought about by our collective acts; it is also a place for

potentially developing memorable architectural environments that enable a better knowledge and

understanding of places, where invisible information flows and mobile environments and

messages populate our lives.

The representations of the city, as the pictorialisation of space and time, have influenced our

knowledge of it. Our own sensory experience reflects a multitude of different perceptions. Hence,

there is a mental landscape of meanings, images and representations that shape the way people

behave, influencing the way they understand and experience city space. However, not only do

these factors change the way people experience and understand cities, but also the professional

practices of architecture and urban design are able to change and shape human behaviour. They

do not just facilitate behaviour between individuals and the city, every gesture and alteration to

the physical environment can define different city experiences.

3 THE MEDIATED CITY - A VIRTUAL EXPERIENCEIt was after the Second World War that communication technologies paved the way for the

formation of the global village. Global communication systems, specifically electronic media has

created unified business communities. This was the greatest restructuring of the city´s economy

since the Industrial Revolution, with information becoming the biggest form of wealth23. Today the

global village is understood as a metaphor of the Internet and the World Wide Web (WWW) ;

which enable the idea of a unified global community, where there are little or no barriers to

information access and exchange of goods: manufacturers who own no workshops, bankers who

handle no cash, retailers who advertise goods ‘not available in any store’, and businessmen and

women who ‘talk’ to work rather than ride24.

With the upcoming of the network society in the late twentieth century, according to Castells25 a

21 Mitchell. City of Bits: Space, Place and the Infobahn (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1996), 5.22 Mitchell. City of Bits: Space, Place and the Infobahn (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1996), 5.23 Desmond Smith. “Info City”, New York Magazine (1981), 24.24 Smith. “Info City” New York Magazine (1981), 24.25 in Dixon, Tim, Thompson, Bob, McAllister, Patrick, Marston, Andrew, and Snow, Jon. Real Estate and the NewEconomy: The Impact of Information and Communications Technology (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2005).

new social structure emerged - a new layer between and within societies: the “space of flows”.

This space of flows was layer based: temporal and spatial organisations of social practices.

Castells defined it as: “the material organisation of time-sharing social practices that work through

flows‟; flows of capital, information, technology, interactions, sounds and images26. The Internet

is a global network of computers: encompassing electronic transactions, exchange

(communication), and representation. As in real neighbourhoods, virtual communities allow

interaction and communication but at a distance; services and goods can be electronically traded;

images, sounds, texts make part of the complex network of the WWW.

In Virtualisation of Architecture27, Renata Piazzalunga contends that digitally configured space,

resulting from technology, can provide other meanings for our experience, and also that this sort

of space promotes a unique way of reading the processes of architecture. The city becomes

constantly virtualised and its perceptions derive increasingly from its representations28. The city

can be visited through a website where public spaces are experienced as if people were actually

there.

The digital city is like an information ecosystem that keeps changing, but also trying to adapt to as

many users as possible. This is the “invisible city” of the twenty-first century – that of the

electronic information age. In “Hybrid City: Augmented Reality for Interactive Artworks in the

Public Space”, Boj and Diaz29 claim that the use of the augmented reality systems will enable

new ways of understanding the city. They question how the city space will respond to the fast

assimilation of “technological devices in urban spaces, the advances in ubiquitous computing and

embedded technologies”30. They make the case for new developments in mixed reality

technologies – that bridge the digital and physical worlds; with two-way interaction enabled by

three-dimension computer graphics – so as to make a new configuration of hybrid space,

between the physical and the digital, possible, what could also be termed as augmented reality.

In “Understanding Digital Cities”, Toru Ishida31 also explores the city metaphors developed in

information spaces. The author argues that digital cities, as spaces for public communication and

social information networks, will change together with the advance of computer and network

technologies; where the Internet is a valuable platform for the global spread of information about

26 in Dixon et al. Real Estate and the New Economy: The Impact of Information and Communications Technology(Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2005), p.24.27 Campinas: Papirus Editora, 2004.28 Renata Piazzalunga.Virtualização da Arquitectura (Virtualisation of Architecture) (Campinas: Papirus Editora, 2004).29 Boj, Clara and Diaz, Diego. “The Hybrid City: Augmented Reality for Interactive Artworks in the Public Space”. inChrista Sommerer, L. C. Jain, Laurent Mignonneau (eds). The Art and Science of Interface and Interaction Design,Vol.1 (2008),141-161.30 Boj and Diaz. “The Hybrid City: Augmented Reality for Interactive Artworks in the Public Space”. in ChristaSommerer, L. C. Jain, Laurent Mignonneau (eds). The Art and Science of Interface and Interaction Design, Vol.1(2008),145.31 Toru Ishida.“Understanding Digital Cities”. in Ishida, Toru, and Isbister, Katherine (eds) Digital Cities:Technologies, Experiences, and Future Perspectives (London: Springer, 2000), 7-17.

every aspect of life. “Digital cities integrate urban information (both achievable and real-time) and

create public spaces for people living in the cities”32. They can be created for commercial, tourism,

welfare, educational, and political purposes; they attract people because they can experience a

space that can belong to them for as long as they stay connected. The digital city offers not a

substitution of the physical city but a complementary space (social, political, cultural).

3.1 Digital Porto - A community platformBesides being able to provide mediated experiences of places, digital cities have also become

important for urban planning and community participation, with 2D and 3D mappings of real cities

and interactive e-platforms.

The WWW has had great impact on people’s perceptions and understanding of cities and digital

information is increasingly used by a large number of people, rapidly taking over some of the

traditional means of dissemination; information is readily available and easy to find. Over the past

10 years, digital information about the city of Porto has been increasing. With the understanding

that places are better promoted through the use of communication media, the city‟s institutions

and leaders have initiated a series of digital projects aiming to inform and communicate the city

and to train and support with various areas of interest. Under the national initiative of “Cidades

Digitais” (Digital Cities), financed by POS-Conhecimento (Operational Program of Informational

Society), the project aims to develop an Informational and Knowledgeable Society at the regional

level. In such a way as to create applied regional skills that generate economical value for each

region; raise quality of life; promote competitiveness; and sustainable development.

“Porto Digital” is one of the many digital cities aiming to contribute for the evolution of an

informational and knowledge society, and to make that society within global reach. Within “Porto

Digital”, there are communities with real and virtual interests concerned with the local scale and

the global one: dealing with work and competitiveness; concerned with simplifying and facilitating

interaction with local power; access to information, culture and leisure.

32 Ishida.“Understanding Digital Cities”. in Ishida, Toru, and Isbister, Katherine (eds) Digital Cities:Technologies,Experiences, and Future Perspectives (London: Springer, 2000), 7.

Figure 3. Digital Porto.

The relevant benefits for the city, according to “Porto Digital” aims, are to increase

inter-communication between University hubs (with relative small charges for internet access and

also smaller charges for the council, once it becomes networked) and for technology companies

that might get fixed in the wider region; to create more precise traffic information and information

about the city in mixed media. “Porto Digital” offers links to many official websites about the city of

Porto, such as the Porto City Council (CMP), Tourism and Culture. From here people can also

‘travel’ to “Portorama”, a restricted to registered-users-only cyberspace, where people can upload

and share photographs of Porto, giving their idiosyncratic views of the city. After registering,

people can install software to start uploading photographs and join the community.

Design professionals recognise that the experience of space only has meaning from the

standpoint of motion. Due to this, they have looked for other perceptual tools that approach

design of movement; such as film or 3D animation. Use of these mediums has helped the public

to better understand the idea that the relationship between space and their movement in it is as

an important generator of experience. “Porto Digital” created an initiative that shows how

three-dimensional virtual models can be used to represent the city in a more virtually accessible

manner. The website aims to create a virtual experience of the city using key buildings of Porto

and is intended to make the city more accessible to tourists from around the world who use the

WWW as a vehicle for experiencing Porto.

Within the project of Porto Digital, in 2006, a competition “Porto em 3D” (Porto in

three-dimensions) envisioned the creation of three-dimensional models, in electronic format, of

paradigmatic buildings of Porto, aimed to enable the better understanding of the physical city

without direct experience of it. Only eleven buildings were proposed to be transformed into digital

models. Today (2014) there are ten virtual models available on-line.

Figure 4. Porto 3D.

Another example of the virtual information on Porto is “Cidade das Profissões” (City of

Professions), created in 2006, as a project to freely support the inhabitants of city of Porto in the

areas of: information and counselling about the world of professions, jobs, training and

entrepreneurship. This project was born after the international network of cities of professions,

created in France during the 1990s (Réseau Cités des Métiers). It aims to promote citizens

employability and entrepreneurship by developing their skills and promoting knowledge about the

world of work, enhancing their ability to adapt to market changes. This project is supplementary to

the existing services in the city of Porto, developing alliances and partnerships that contribute for

the quality and relevance of its activities. It provides individual counselling about jobs, internships,

training and entrepreneurship; free internet access; venues for meetings, training and recruitment;

monthly workshops, seminars and informational sessions; and projects for schools and

organisations. “Cidade das Profissões” conceives products for those with specific informational

needs; thematic games, newsletters and other informational kits, which are made available to

users and spread throughout the partners’ network33.

From “Cidade das Profissões‟ people access a blog that acts as a virtual centre for counselling

33 Cidade das Profissões (City of Professions). “Objectivos” (Objectives). Accessed April 15 2014.http://cdp.portodigital.pt/sobre-o-portal/objectivos.

and information; in which they can share ideas, and be notified about specific events of the city.

However at this time, it is evident that people are not yet fully engaged with digital information

because there are no entries under most of the posts. This can mean that, people are still

reluctant to trust the Internet as a valid source of information and communication; or haven’t

developed interest in what is going on in their city. Nevertheless “Porto Digital” can still have an

important role in disseminating information about the city and instigating to closer participation.

The “Porto Digital” project falls within a major aim of the city´s Master Plan, elaborated by the City

Council in partnership with PortoVivo SRU34, for developing a Communication Plan and

motivating all agents to contribute for the process of revitalising downtown. This plan will allow for

citizens to contribute knowledge and ideas thereby reducing conflicts caused by a lack of

information. The Communication Plan focuses on six thematic promotional representations of the

city. The first is about portraying Porto as a city of “Science and Innovation” and is a focus of

business opportunities and scientific creation, supported by universities and research centres.

The second focuses on Porto as a city of “Retail” promoting shopping events. The third

represents the city of “Tourism and Leisure”, promoting the city as a tourist destination; involving

travel agencies, private individuals and the Portuguese tourism exchange. The fourth is about

representing Porto as “Culture and Entertainment”, communicating different cultural and

businesses activities and initiatives of the city. The fifth presents Porto as a city of “Mobility”,

promoting public transporting, information on roads and car parks; and making the city more

environmental-friendly. The sixth is about “Housing” promotion amongst students, and young

people, entrepreneurs and creativity and knowledge professionals35. The ‘Communication Plan’,

together with “Cidade das Profissões” and “Porto Digital”, show that city agents in Porto are

growingly aware of the importance of virtual platforms for communication and information in order

to reach to wider audiences and for putting across those images they think best represent a

positive, future-led and innovative city.

A very important achievement in the field of ICT, also answering the particular aims of the city of

“Mobility” (the fifth theme in the Communication Plan), was made by the Metro do Porto SA in

partnership with ACAPO (Blind and Amblyopic Portuguese Association) and FEUP (University of

Porto Engineering Faculty), developing a service for blind and amblyopic, with information and

navigation in all interior metro stations – NAVMETRO. It is an innovative tool that allows for users

with visual impairment to be oriented while using the system; such as choosing a ticket; validation;

orientation inside the station; and providing generic information about the Metro lines, schedules

34 Public funded company, by the state and the city council, with the mission of leading urban regeneration of Porto’sdowntown.35 Porto Master Plan, “Executive Summary”. Porto Vivo Sociedade de Reabilitação Urbana (SRU), 2005. 26.http://www.portovivosru.pt/sub_menu_2_1.php.

and tickets. NAVMETRO is a technological innovation developed by different scholars,

academics and professionals, with the aim of making the Metro’s network more accessible. It

aims at guaranteeing fair use for all citizens, and specially those visually impaired. NAVMETRO

works as a voice and sound orientation system using mobile phones when its users are located

inside a metro station they can be guided through several routes; and at decision points a bird

song is emitted to keep the thread of spatial orientation36. From these examples one can realised

the substantial impact ICT has for creating representations and mediated experiences of Porto.

Digital platforms are important for communicating information about cities; their citizens and

events, thus impacting on people’s perceptions of the city.

FINAL CONSIDERATIONSAs discussed throughout this essay, information about the city has passed from the spoken word

to more advanced means of communication such as digital platforms. These could be perceived

as the invisible layers of the city, ones that can be accessed in the visual and virtual worlds.

The physical city is increasingly supplemented by the digital city, where information is made

available at all kinds of levels. The case of Porto, here mentioned, has illustrated how the digital

and electronic information about cities has invaded everyday life; from on-line newspapers,

community blogs, personal Web-pages, to dedicated city e-spaces. However, the ways ICT

impacts cities and people varies according to the different spatial and social contexts.

Some of the ideas exposed here, about digital information have been based upon existing work

and research on the city and its informational networks; questioning the current hypothesis of the

possibility of physical space being surpassed by cyberspace. It is true that with globalisation and

the technological advances of the last part of the past century, information networks have

invaded people’s lives, both in private and public spaces: cable television has entered the home;

wide screens have flooded the city landscape; the recent optical fibre and digital television allow

faster access to digital and electronic information; GPS has provided better geographical

navigation and orientation. However, these instruments, or informational tools, have come to

exist in a parallel condition to the physical city, rather than having been created to dissolve it.

These information networks exist according to the demands of an increasingly fast-paced society

where real-time events, information, and data are divulged through any of the existing networks

of information to reach the individual realm.

Physical spaces will always be the platforms that provide the city with flows of people, information,

36 “Navmetro - Navegação assistida para pessoas cegas e com baixa visão na rede do metro do Porto”. ACAPO, 2009,accessed 22 April 2014, http://www.acapo.pt/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=235:navmetro&Catid=1:noticias&Itemid=189.

and communication – some of which are visible layers, others are invisible. People’s experience

of the city is increasingly mediated by these networks, but never entirely replaced by the virtual

experience. In the information city there are new spaces, where new experience conditions are

established; such as the virtualisation process, virtual presence and augmented reality. Buying,

selling, booking appointments, visiting museums, chatting and many other human activities can

be mediated through information systems and are made effective in virtual environments.

Experience can occur beyond the purely presential concept. Boyer37 argues that the prevalence

of sight over the other senses has had a string effect on the emergence of virtual reality

technologies. She advocates that this phenomenon will fragment the relationship between people

and the city. Others advocate that the information age will bring about the end of “press,

television, and mass media; the end of brokers and other intermediaries; end of firms,

bureaucracies, and similar organisations; end of universities; cities and regions; and the end of

nation-state”38. There is enough evidence to support the fact that communication technologies

increase contact and the exchange of information between people. However, the idea that virtual

spaces will replace physical space and the interpersonal relationship will disappear is still far from

being proven. To claim that cyberspace will replace the physical urban spaces of the city is

simplistic. Even with the co-modification of information, not all people have access to such

technologies and not all that use them are shut away from city life. There is obviously an increase

in the search for virtual or digital information; especially if people want to know before direct

experience.

Digital cities are mainly sites that inform about the real counterpart. Thus, they may also prompt

people to visit to the real city. Digital cities should be “physical space-oriented, encouraging

people to go out”39.

Electronic information about cities and technological advances in dissemination allow indirect

experiences and help shape people’s perceptions of cities before they have been experienced

first-hand. Ultimately, it is now hard to think of life without technology - it has become embedded

in everyday city activities: “integrated within a complex network of human actors and technical

artefacts (...) leading to the recombination of new spaces and times”40.

Electronic information about Porto has been increasing due to the appreciation that the Internet is

the most used and up-dated media for representing, informing and communicating the city. By

37 M. Christine Boyer. The City of Collective Memory: Its Historical Imagery and Architectural Entertainments (London:MIT Press, 1994).38 Brown, John Seely, Duguid, Paul. The Social Life of Information (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard BusinessSchool Press, 2002), 16.39 Alessandro Aurigi. Making the Digital City, The Early Shaping of Urban Internet Space (Hampshire: Ashgate, 2005),62.40 in Dixon et al. Real Estate and the New Economy: The Impact of Information and Communications Technology(Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2005), p.26.

2013, there were many websites for the promotion of many aspects of the city; community blogs

and forums to promote debate about local issues; dedicated tourism websites containing

information ranging from the history of the city to the most detailed list of activities going on in

Porto. Digital cities have also become instruments where the city is produced and communicated

by the city´s agents according to their priorities.

The growing awareness of the potential of varying kinds of ICT applied to planning, transportation,

education and others, has allowed the city council of Porto to adopt it, creating an information and

telecommunication infrastructure able to generate an accessible community of knowledge and

creation. ICTs have great impact on people’s perceptions of the city for they enable mediated

experiences, therefore they are important tools increasingly used to promote cities at a global

scale, putting forward representations that aim to match the city agent’s beliefs and expectations

about them, as discussed throughout and more specifically in terms of image change, as

addressed in the case of Porto.

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FIGURE CREDITS:Figure 1. Casa da Música (1999 - 2005). Porto, 2010. in Lima, Cláudia S.G.F. “Imprint City:

Representations and Perceptions of Porto after 2001”, unpublished PhD thesis, University of Liverpool,UK, 2011. 162.

Figure 2. Casa da Música, planification of the envelope. in Lima, Cláudia S.G.F. “Imprint City:Representations and Perceptions of Porto after 2001”, unpublished PhD thesis, University of Liverpool,UK, 2011. 176.

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